Book pitches Tom Cruise for president

The actor apparently thinks it’s within reach. Lawrence Wright, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Looming Tower,” is out with a new tome, titled: “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison Belief.” It includes a passage in which the “Top Gun” star ponders a possible political future.

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Discussing President George W. Bush, Scientology leader David Miscavige says, “‘Bush may be an idiot, but I wouldn’t mind his being our Constantine,’ referring to the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity,” according to an excerpt of “Going Clear,” published in The Hollywood Reporter.

Cruise fans shouldn’t get too excited, however; the book also adds this: “(Cruise, through his lawyer, denies this exchange and says he has no political ambition.)”

The book also looks into Cruise’s effort to lobby Washington to support Scientology.

“Cruise repeatedly consulted with President Clinton, lobbying him to get Prime Minister Tony Blair’s help in getting the Church of Scientology declared a tax-deductible charitable organization in the U.K. … In 2003, he met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, to express the Church’s concerns over its treatment in Germany. Cruise had access to practically anyone in the world. That same year, Cruise and [Tommy] Davis lobbied Rod Paige, the secretary of education during the first term of President George W. Bush, to endorse Hubbard’s ‘study tech’ educational methods. Paige had been impressed. For months, Cruise kept in contact with Paige’s office, urging that Scientology techniques be folded into the president’s No Child Left Behind program.”

(Davis is the head of the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Los Angeles.)